WORLD TIDES IN THE FAR EAST

Evening Star, Issue 21718, 12 May 1934, Page 3

WORLD TIDES IN THE FAR EAST

Sermon preached by Rev, D. C. Herron in Knox Church last Sunday. With the above title, Basil Mathews has written a little book of 150 pages, which is so packed with interesting information about the currents and cross currents running through that densely populated and rapidly changing section of the earth that in speaking about it one has difficulty in selecting what to leave out. He says the transformation which has been and is taking place in the East has been caused by three successive movements; first, the influence of Western civilisation, bringing with it new ideas and revolutionising the life of the people by introducing industrial modes of manufacture; second, the vise of the idea of national self-determination. The latest phase of this which has become articulate even since the book was written toward the end of last year, is the desire of Japan to exclude non-Asiatic influences from not only her own country, but also China. The third movement is Bolshevism, which is the direct challenge to this intense nationalism. For years Manchuria has been regarded as the most dangerous friction point in the world, it is marvellous that Japan has been able to take possession without precipitating another world conflagration! If population gives right of possession, it should belong to China. It is a country about the size of Franco and Germany combined. Twenty-eight of its thirty millions arc Chinese, and only 300,000 Japanese. However, there are also 800,000 Koreans—i.e., subjects of the Japanese Empire. The justification and the ostensible reason for Japan’s action was need of territory for her over-populated country. During the last sixty years Japan’s population has doubled, and is now increasing at the rate of nearly one million a year. But in reality the Japanese are not inclined to emigrate. They like a temperate climate, and Manchuria, like Canada, is very cold in winter. What Japan wanted from Manchuria was raw material, coal, and iron for the building up of her manufactures. Her national greatness is bound up with the success ol her industries.

National and imperial loyalty is probably more powerful in Japan than in any other country. Their reverence for their Emperor equals the emperor worship of the Roman Empire. As a nation they have an unbroken record of triumphs, which has quickened their belief that their national Head is blessed by heaven. However, all is not well internally with Japan. In spite of the increasing severity of repression, Communism continues to grow. In 1932, 6,900 arrests were made. Communism feeds on discontent with oppressive conditions, and nowhere else is there so great a contrast between poverty and wealth. Nowhere else is the finance of a country concentrated in so few hands; for example, a few .wealthy firms got inside information when the country was about to go off the gold standard, and made £12,000,000 profit by dealing in dollars. Yet at that time many of the peasants were eating fish refuse, cattle feed, and root grass, or starving. As in Italy, the fear of Communism in Japan has led to what is virtually Fascism.

The reason why Japan made an attack on Shanghai in 1932 was that Chinese, by boycotting the sale of Japanese goods, were strangling Japan. The .Japanese Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai estimated that their loss there in 1932 amounted to £18,000,000. The continuance of trade with China seems absolutely necessary if Japan is not going to starve. It is no wonder, therefore, that she looks with a jealous eye upon the nations of the West, and endeavours, like Tom Tiddler, to warn them off her ground. On the other hand, China docs not wish to be dictated to by her miniature neighbour. She has received more than one humiliation at the hands of Japan, and doubtless there are many Chinese who long for the day when she will be able to reverse the position. But the rulers in China are not masters in their own house. In the south there is the Cantonese Government, which is not amenable to discipline by the Central Government; in the north there are the war lords in various areas ruling by the sword. But the Government’s worst problems come from the Bolshevists, which in well-organised groups here and there in China absolutely control populations which combined are larger than the total population of Germany. If these disruptive political and national factors were the only forces working in the East almost anyone could predict that it would he only a matter of time when a spark falling into the explosive material would set the whole East, and perhaps the whole world, once more ablaze. But, mingling with a great deal that would blast and destroy, there is the healing Spirit of Christ. The Christian forces in the East are only a handful, and yet their influence is incalculable. What impresses one on reading this book is the amazing vitality of Christianity in these countries. When, in 1932, the feeling between China and Japan was fearfully intense four leading Japanese Christians, with tremendous courage, dared to cross over to China, and there expressed their conviction that until Christ, the Prince of Peace, stood between the two countries there could be no progress in goodwill. Kagawa, the great Japanese Christian leader, wrote an apology for his country to the Chinese Christians, in which he said: “ I want to ask your pardon for my nation. Because of what we are doing 1 cannot preach in the name of Christ. Pardon us, pardon me especially because our Christian forces were not strong enough to get the vie-

tor.y over the militarists. But the day wilt come when we shall be strong enough to do this, and when both nations will be harmonious and peaceful in the name of Christ.” This calls to mind the triumphant words of John; “ This is the victory that ovcrcometh the world, even onr faith.”

Leading Chinese Christians on their part have been not less slow by their attitude to attempt to bridge the gulf. At a meeting of Christian leaders from the two countries in Japan that same difficult year one of the Chinese delegates said: “By the constant interchange of messages of sympathy and goodwill during the last,twelve months and by the courageous stand taken by some Japanese Christians, the Christiana in onr two countries have come closer together in the fellowship of prayer and sorrow, although our respective countries seem to drift further apart.'’ If this amazingly vital Christian spirit which has been able to rise above national jealousy and mutual distrust stems the tide and saves the world from another conflagration, even from the lowest and; most selfish viewpoint, tho money and lives put into missionary enterprise by the British i ace will turn out to have been one of tho best investments the Empire has ever made. One of the most amazing figures on the world stage to-day is the Japanese leader Kagawa. He was the illegitimate child of a dissolute petty nobleman and a woman of! the street —a geisha. He came under the influence of Christianity when a boy When a student he plunged into the life of the slums, and despite a tuberculous constitution and the almost complete loss of eyesight through a contagious disease contracted in a pestilential criminal district, tor fifteen years he lived in a room 611 by 6ft, wrote numerous books, organised the first Japanese trade union, and emerged one of the most influential forces in Japan, alternately imprisoned and used by the Government. In the winter of 1930-31, called in to help by the mayor of Tokio, who was spending £1,000,000 a year on relief, in five months he put through the city council a scheme of unemployment insurance which placed the whole problem on a sound basis.

He is to-day one of the world’s outstanding Labour leaders, and is helping to focus the Christian conscience on the question of the right relationship between Capital and Labour in a country where Capitalism and Communism stand defiantly facing each other. In the early days Kagawa was a marked man by the police, but he has so won their confidence that to-day they urge young men who show dangerous and irresponsible tendencies to go and hear Kagawa speak. The quality and fairness of his leadership may Ije judged from the fact that largely through his influence in Japan five Labour Party is led by Christians. The impression one gains from reading Mathews’s book is that among the Japanese Christians, .as among the Christians of the first Christian century, there is a' vivid sense of the reality and the power of the living and ever-present Christ. Bands of young men who on accepting the Christian religion forty years ago dedicated themselves to live out its teaching, have carried through their purpose in such a virile and full-blooded way that their influence- has quickened the pulse of Christianity in all the churches.Last year, in speaking of China, 1 indicated how tho inspiration of the Jerusalem Conference sent the delegates home filled with enthusiasm and new hopes which led to the launching of the five-year plan by which they attempted to double the number of Christians in China. The Japanese delegates likewise carried their maturation into action. They launched a throe-year plan on a different model. They determined to concentrate the first year on general evangelism, by word of mouth, in meetings and in conference, by literature and by schools training laymen in evangelism. The second year was given to the education of peasant farmers as Christian leaders in their own communities. This resulted in a widespread activity of little Christian groups similar to those in the very early Christian Church. In the third year attention was concentrated on the question of Christianising economics—one of the most urgent problems, not only of Japan, but of the whole world.

One means of evangelism was the creation of a Christian weekly newspaper which has a circulation of 35,000 per week. This has resulted in an enormous correspondence being carried on with thousands of people whose interest in Christianity has been aroused by newspaper articles. Prominent people have taken a-share in this movement. The ex-president of a large university, who was highly respected, and as university president for ten years had done national service, travelled all over the country and addressed students. They were greatly influenced by his blend of intellectual strength and spiritual enthusiasm. - Another man —a blind professor—whose subject had been philosophy, did similar service. The fact that this man, whose service to the university had earned him the right in the evening of his days to take a rest, although blind, was prepared to stump the country in the interests of Christianity, stirred people deeply all over Japan. Kagawa also shared in this forward movement, and is giving half his time to it, working in places which he has not previously visited. Up to autumn of last year 37,000 people had sent in signed requests to be enrolled in Bible classes in order to go further in their search for truth, and more than 27,000 Christian men have attended training conferences in order to equip themselves for efficient honorary service in the church and community. Mathews says: “ This Kingdom - of God movement has united the Japanese Church and the Western missionaries in a vigorous ami happy initiative against mammonism, materialism. and militarism. There is the elan of victory both in its leadership and in its rank and file.” One most desirable result has been that laymen have caught a fresh sense of their responsibility. Mathews _ quotes this statement from a Christian worker in Japan: “Not long ago I visited a silver mine in an out-of-the-way place in the mountains. One of the mine officials, a graduate in engineering,' had_ started Christian work among the miners on his own initiative. Ho had a regular service in his house every Sunday, and with his wife’s help a Sunday school in the afternoon. Every evening that he wgs not engaged in the mine he was at home to any who cared to come in for Bible study. In this way he had collected a little congregation of inquirers, some of whom had learned quite well the rudiments of the Christian faith.”

The impressive thing in this book is the evidence of the way in which Christian leaders, both in China and •Japan, are straining every nerve to bridge the swift-running stream of nationalism which along both its banks would sweep away the spirit of mutual understanding and goodwill. When the Chinese delegates, alter returning from Jerusalem, launched their five-year plan for the doubling of their membership in the Christian churches, although feeling was bitter between the two countries, Kagawa came from Japan to share in the leadership ol retreats for a renewal of faith in God. In 1932, when feeling between the two countries was dangerously tense,

the Moderator of the Church of. Christ in China wrote to a prominent Japanese Christian who was a friend of his: “ Do not allow the present strained relations between your country and mine to prevent us Christian people from continuing to love each other and remembering each other’s work in our time of quietness before Him Who is love itself. Let the love of Christ constrain us to move forward for more permanent and lasting peace in the world, in this time of distress and crisis may you and your fellow Christians in Japan be divinely guided to know what to do or sav to the glory of God. Pray for us, too. If there is anything that would work for better understanding and closer fellowship between the Christian people of these two countries we are eager to take advantage of such opportunities.” I wonder if there is anything as fine as that taking place between Christians in Germany and France; yet remember that Christianity in China and Japan is not 150 years old. It is great that our New Zealand Presbyterian Church is having a share in producing such Christians and making some contribution to the support of a Christianity which is fighting such a vigorous battle for peace in the Far East, where the scales swing so ominously between dragging the world down to black chaos and lifting it by giving it an inspiring lead in noble and good international relationships. Who can tell whether deliverance in the West may not yet come from the inspiring example of the _ East ? The world may yet have occasion fervently to thank God for those who planted the standard 6f the Prince of Peace in the lands of the Rising Sun.